Game Of Thrones - Knight and the Dreamer
by raybatrix
Summary: The first part of the epic ( All reviews are welcome )


**-THE SEAFARING KNIGHT-**

* * *

The winds were howling in the distance. The rustles of the tree branches were as continuous as the noise of the maester's white raven. The citadel had sent it a fortnight ago, to inform the castle of the impending winter that was coming to the entire realm, whether it was the defiant north or the warm, familiar, south. _It's not like_ _we_ _didn't know._ Erik had seen the godswood trees many times lately, and each was as bare as the next, with a few leaves left that too would soon fall, for winter was here, and with it, much more. _Omens,bad omens…._ Erik had never been a superstitious man,but with winter here, and him being remarkably alive after the battle as well as an army of the undead marching on the realm, he became a man believing in some sort of higher _destiny._ How else could this happen? _Destiny, it is winter will be remembered_ _ _forever_._ He had had some close calls during the fighting, but somehow he had come out alive. _Most were not so lucky._ All he had gotten was a scar on his cheek that ran down to his upper neck, splitting through his beard. But he had other comely features to be thankful for, his long, flowy hair and the singer's smile he had been gifted with. _  
_

Jon Snow's victory at Winterfell had been a remarkable feat, and with thousands of knights arriving to help Snow when all hope seemed lost, this would a story the bards would song of forever. _They'll sing of the bastard king and the monster in Winterfell, but not me...no one sings of a lowly knight pledged to a foreign lord.I'll be forgotten,by all of them, even by the family I have left, If I do not seek them out._ It had been five years, since Erik the Bloody had pledged his sword to Ser Davos Seaworth. It was at the order of Stannis Baratheon, who needed a good sword to keep his onion knight alive. _A good man,this Onion lord,but not a knight. He doesn't even know how to fight. It was a miracle he survived the Battle of the Bastards._ Ser Davos had taken a liking to the lowborn hedge knight, and had taken him along wherever he went in this foreign land. _I have done you good service, my lord. Now release me, so I can find my brothers..._ he had thought to ask this in front of the Onion knight himself, but couldn't ever muster up the strength to do so. _  
_

''Erik!" someone called out from the was a deep, coarse voice, and Erik had no difficulty in recognizing the speaker. _Lorren,the sentry._ He had been sharpening his blade for the past hour, in a small guard room next to the maester's chambers. He didn't like to be disturbed when sharpening a sword, so he often locked the door. The other times, he didn't have the privilege of having a room for himself. _A hard life for a southern_ _knight._

"Erik, open the door,you lazy bastard!" Lorren called again."This is my room,in case you forgot".

"I hear you, Lorren" he got up and unlocked the door. Lorren rushed in. He was a thin, tall figure, with a fairly plain face and a strong northern accent. His eyes were brown and narrow, and on his chin was a puff of black hair that reminded Erik of his own brother."Took you long enough" said the lad. He eyed the whetstone in Erik's hand. "Oh, pardon me, ser, were you sharpening your royal cock...?" jested the spirited northener. _Yes, and I was preparing to stab your mother with it._ He kept quiet and gestured towards his longsword _Old Blood_ , lying a feet away from him. "Did you know your room has an excellent view of the castle?"said Erik. In reply,Lorren smiled a queer smile. "Surely you didn't come here to mock me, lad" he said to the young sentry.  
"You got the right of that ... Ser Davos calls you."

It was took him a few minutes to reach the lord's chambers. On his way, he thought about Lorren and his jape, smiling as he did. _A good friend, an honest friend._ Whenever he needed someone to converse with, he went to Lorren. He was always good company, and welcomed Erik in a brotherly manner. _Who else do I have?_ Erik was born in King's Landing, the biggest city in Westeros. He had two brothers, whom he loved and grew up with. They played through the narrow streets and stole pastries from the bakeries in Flea Bottom. _Edwin and little Lommy, oh , how I miss them both._ _We talked about getting a ship and sailing the world,just the three of us,and visiting all the lands mother told us about, The Free Cities and the smoking ruins of Old Valyria, and even beyond, to Qarth and the fabled lands of the Golden Empire._ He was fifteen when his mother died. The same year he made some friends in the City Watch, who taught him to fight with a sword. After seeing his talent with the blade, they sought to make him a soldier, like them. His brothers protested, but he did not care about what they had to say. He had changed, and not entirely for the better. A few years later he left with the Lannister army, leaving his brothers the old house by the pond. _And Sonya, oh Sonya, who changed my life._ The brothers had known Sonya since they were little. They played with her and took care of even shared their meals with her. Erik had loved Sonya since he was a boy. He dreamed of a world in which they lived together,married, and with children of their could not imagine a life without her, and this was his undoing. Once,the year before he left to Casterly Rock with the Lannisters, he had made up his mind to confess his love to Sonya. He came to her,looking as good as a lowborn peasant can be, and spoke his heart. He had been confident that Sonya would accept his love and accept _him_ , until he saw the tears swell behind her eyes,for those tears changed everything. Atfirst he thought they were tears of joy, but when Sonya spoke,his heart shattered into a million pieces. She told him how she had loved his younger brother Edwin for years, and how Edwin had loved her back. "Edwin's the man for me , Erik. I wish you can see that"as she spoke on and on, his world collapsed, his dreams died one by one. _Edwin had also taken her maidenhood, he had fucked her, over and over again, and I had never seen the truth._ Erik had been training with his friends in the City Watch most of his time, and this he blamed for his ignorance about Sonya and Erik, and their love which was so clear afterwards. He could not live with himself anymore, and he wanted to go away, far away, from his brothers and Sonya. He _did_ _go_ far away, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not forget nor forgive Sonya.

The lord was sitting by the bed, in his chambers. He was trying to read a book of some sort. His face was stern with concentration, but the words that came out of his mouth were abhorrent and twisted. _So the rumors are true, the man cannot read._ When Ser Davos saw his knight by the door, he put down his book and stood up. He was wearing a silk robe, with a silk belt that had the wolf sketched on it. "Erik the Bloody! Is it true you killed half a hundred bolton men at the field of battle?" Erik smiled and said, "more or less,my lord". Davos smiled back and motioned forward. He looked Erik dead in the eye,and asked, "How do you like Winterfell?". Erik knew what to say,"It's glorious my lord, I like it here.I have a comfortable room to sleep in and good wine to devour". Now, Davos looked like he was almost going to laugh."That's too bad. Because we're leaving". Erik looked surprised. _Leaving? But we just took this castle..._ Davos studied the look on his face, and come on even near his pledged sword "Tell me, Erik the Bloody, how would you like to see a dragon?"

During the Sack of King's Landing, Erik came back with the rest of the army, and like the rest of the army,pillaged the city without a thought of the afflicted. Old lord Tywin Lannister wanted to break the Targaryen power completely, and a full show of his devastating power, had been the most efficient way to do so. Erik killed and killed, as if he had been in some sort of trance, and though it soon broke over, he is still haunted by what he did more than 20 years ago. He found Sonya, raped her as she cried for help,and when his brother arrived to help his newly wed wife, he punched his face to a pulp. He killed the young woman right there when he was finished with her, ignoring his injured brother's cries. _How could I do that, to my own brother, whom I had loved since his birth. How could I do that, to the woman I had sworn to protect._ He never saw his family again. The Stag King took the throne and made him a knight, and the court applauded and commended as he rose at his new king's command. At the moment, he had believed he had done what was right, what was _necessary._ But soon after he became a knight, he began to see the truth, the truth of the world...the common folk still struggling, _struggling to survive, struggling to be happy,_ even though the _evil_ dragon king had perished. He remembered Sonya, and her muffled cries as he ravaged he realized the horror of what he had done, in the name of justice,he left the Lannisters and vowed to serve the most honorable man he could find. _I am a knight, seeking redemption._ Over time he had found out that almost all the great lords in Westeros were more or less the same, with their castles and wars, and their subsequent cruelty on those the gods had birthed lower than themselves. He soon began to believe that no house was actually evil, but that the individuals who had the control of it, were the ones to decide the fate of his name, and this belief gave him a bit of hope. _Maybe this dragon is different from her forefathers. Maybe she does care._

 _But then again,_ he remembered , _I am in service to the wolf._


End file.
